Emails are not the cause of 1MDB’s financial troubles, but we will defer to the home minister


BY THE EDGE MALAYSIA
The Malaysian Insider
27 June 2015

There are now allegations that emails published by The Edge in recent months about certain dealings between 1MDB and PetroSaudi International were doctored and forged.

This follows the arrest of a former top PetroSaudi executive in Thailand on accusations that he extorted his ex-employer.

Certain media have also quoted unnamed security experts as saying the emails were tampered with or forged.

As a consequence, Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has issued a warning that The Edge could be suspended.

We have published some of the emails since the start of the year to accompany reports on the dealings between 1MDB and PetroSaudi that date back to 2009 and 2011. Very little was known about what had happened back then and those emails and other documents helped us piece together the chain of events surrounding 1MDB’s US$1.83 billion deals with PetroSaudi.

We were not cavalier in our approach and we only published what we believed were authentic after very careful consideration. Throughout these past five months, no one has challenged the authenticity of the emails and we have offered our help to all the authorities looking into the problems at 1MDB, including passing them what we have.

As a media company, we are guided by the principle that we are here to serve the public interest. And with over RM40 billion of public money at stake, 1MDB and its struggles to service its massive debts is the single most important public issue we face today.

What is a fact is that the emails ARE NOT the source of 1MDB’s problems.

That lies elsewhere and, hopefully, we can get to the bottom of it through the various ongoing investigations.

Nonetheless, we will defer to the Home Minister and will not refer to the emails again in any of our reports until the air is cleared about them.

The Edge welcomes any comprehensive investigation into this matter and will offer assistance to any authorities tasked with verifying the authenticity of the information we previously used. – June 27, 2015.

  1. #1 by drngsc on Sunday, 28 June 2015 - 10:51 pm

    This Petrol Saudi-Justo fiasco, is a very poorly scripted charade that even the kampong Malays can see through. I am sure that we will soon hear and see the end of it. In fact many of us are wishing that this threats will materialise and people will be prosecuted in open court. Then we will see documents as evidence and the original emails and documents. Even Najib with his expensive PR team cannot be that stupid to carry on the charade. This distraction has failed and back fired. Najib, time to try something else. The noose is tightening and he is getting more desperate.

  2. #2 by Zoroaster137 on Tuesday, 30 June 2015 - 5:45 pm

    This comment refers to missing plane MH370. It is now clear, after months of searching, that the mathematical techniques used to estimate the likely final position of the plane in the South Indian Ocean have proven ineffective. This is because the search method was flawed. Rather than trying to use raw data to pin-point the plane’s location, it is better to try an entirely different approach by getting inside the mind of the pilot – the man who planned everything and created a mystery that he knew would go down in aviation history. For reasons too complicated to explain here, I believe that the final resting place of MH370 is a precise location, namely: 90 East, 30 South exactly. If you would like the full explanation and reasoning you can contact me at: [email protected] and I will email my solution.

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